Rise (24 page)

I disappeared through the Venetian gardens, winding down the alleyways I'd learned when Caleb and I had been together. With my hands tied it was harder to run, my wrists throbbing from where the restraints dug into my skin. I moved quickly, starting along the back of the building, past the wide, cerulean canals, the sky darkening across their glassy surface. People ran past the bolted shops, weaving under the archways and through the outdoor corridors to stay hidden. Others sprinted into the entrance to the apartment complex, locking the doors behind them. I turned back, scanning the arched bridges and open patio, the wrought-iron chairs scattered across the bricks. I'd lost the Lieutenant somewhere along the way, but a soldier was now coming toward me, his eyes fixed on me as he drew his knife.

I darted down one of the open corridors, the stone pillars flying past as I ran. I finally reached a side entrance of the Venetian, but it was locked, a chain looped through the inside handles. As I took off around the perimeter of the building, I tried the next set of doors, then the next. The soldier broke into a sprint, his pace overtaking mine as I struggled, trying to find an entrance. Within seconds he had caught up.

“Princess,” he said, his knife out. He grabbed my arm and pulled me around, nicking the restraints with the blade. “There. I thought you could use help.”

The blood went back into my hands, the cold, tingling feeling startling me awake. I squeezed my fists shut, trying to get the warmth back into my fingers. He was only a year or two older than me, with buzzed orange hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose. I vaguely recognized him as one of the soldiers who'd been stationed in the Palace conservatory. His gray eyes searched my face, my arms, then drifted down to my stomach. I realized then—he'd known I was pregnant.

He glanced over his shoulder, watching the remnants of the crowd coming from the main road. Another soldier appeared across the canals, at the edge of the bridge, and my rescuer started off again, running east, away from me. He nodded before turning behind the old hotel.

I sprinted toward the Outlands, moving past the monorail, which was frozen overhead. In the distance, beyond the remaining hotels, the land opened up to dry, gray patches of sand. I ran past a parking lot. A few bodies lay there, the blood congealed on the pavement in horrible, blooming puddles. I turned away, trying to keep my eyes on a three-story warehouse ahead of me. A group of eight or so people funneled inside. A woman in a ripped coat was the last one in, and she turned, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Wait!” I yelled, glancing back to the main road. The sound of gunfire was coming closer. “One more,” I said quickly, starting inside.

“Not her,” a man with disheveled black hair called out from just beyond the doorway. “We'll be tried for siding with the rebels.”

The woman's face was thin and pale, the skin on her neck loose with age. “Only if the rebels lose,” she said, turning back to him. “She's pregnant. We can't let her stay out here.”

There was arguing inside. I glanced behind me, watching as the soldiers from the colonies spread out, starting through the streets. Two darted north, turning before they saw us hovering at the door.

“Please,” I pleaded.

The woman didn't bother asking the others again. Instead she pulled me past her, into the dark warehouse, and locked the door behind us.

THE SUN SLIPPED AWAY. THE SKY TURNED A DEEP PURPLE, THE
stars dusted over the giant dome, disappearing behind the smoke that billowed up from the wall. There were thousands of soldiers. The trucks and Jeeps were scattered to the west, just outside the City. I couldn't make them out in detail, but rebels still climbed from their covered beds, moving toward the broken City gate, their bodies barely visible in the growing dark.

I gripped the roof ledge, and a few women crowded in behind me, looking over the Outlands. The army from the colonies was still covering territory, branching off onto the side streets, banging on doors of dilapidated apartment complexes. They worked their way through the garment factories and around the crop fields to the west. There were thousands of them, some pulling through in restored vehicles similar to the government Jeeps, others on foot. They all had a piece of red fabric wrapped around the arm, some carrying guns, others knives.

We'd been on the rooftop two hours, possibly more. Time passed quickly as the rebels came south, appearing less than half a mile away. I saw two New American soldiers on one of the roads below. They knelt down, their guns in the dirt in front of them, their hands raised in surrender. When a rebel approached, he lashed their wrists together, lining them up against the wall.

“We were supposed to outnumber them,” a woman behind me muttered. She was a head taller than the rest of us, her fingers pressed to her cheek. “They said the colonies didn't have the resources to reach us.”

“It was a lie.” I barely turned as I addressed her. My eyes were fixed on the growing number of rebels that appeared in the streets, moving under the monorail, closer toward us. Whenever I'd heard my father speak of the colonies, it was to tell people how lucky we were, here inside the City, what luxuries we had compared to those who'd assembled in the east. He'd described the two largest colonies in Texas and Pennsylvania as being primitive, with no electricity or running water. He'd said there were still murders there, fighting over the limited resources they had. He'd spoken of conquering them, of walling off the communities in the coming years. I hadn't thought that these others, so far off, could be stronger in numbers than us, that they were actually more powerful, with more supplies amassed between them.

As they neared, I scanned their faces, looking for the boys from the dugout, still believing they might be inside the City. Each face was completely unfamiliar to me. Many were caked in mud and dirt, their boots ripped open. Others appeared thin and haggard. One woman had her wrist wrapped in rope, the bone pressing against a flat strip of wood.

“It's finally over,” the older woman beside me said. From her white shirt and black pants I could tell she'd worked at one of the shops in the Palace mall. “This is the end.” She smiled, nearly laughing as the soldiers came closer, their guns drawn as they approached the warehouse.

Two looked up at us, aiming at the top ledge. “One of you is going to let us in,” the man yelled. “The rest keep your hands raised. Stand along the edge of the roof, where you're in sight.”

A thin man with glasses volunteered, disappearing behind us, into the depths of the warehouse. He returned minutes later, bringing two soldiers with him. The woman had hard, chiseled features. Her cheek was smeared with dried blood. She kept her gun aimed at us as she spoke. “We're going to ask this once,” she said. “Is anyone here associated with the regime?”

We stood in a line, our hands in the air, and I tried to slow my breathing to keep my fingers from shaking. A few seconds passed. The woman next to me was watching, waiting to see if I would speak. I closed my eyes. I was the King's daughter, that fact inescapable.

No one spoke. The wind whipped over the roof, bringing water to my eyes. I counted the seconds, grateful when each one passed. The other soldier, who was shorter, his pants torn at the knees, walked in front of us. He inspected our faces, our clothes, pausing for a moment by the woman in the Palace uniform. “Did you work—”

“Wait,” someone said at the end of the line. A man in a tattered gray jacket was staring at me. His finger shook as he pointed in my direction. “She's the King's daughter. They ordered her execution in the City today.”

“For the attempted murder of her father,” the woman beside me added. She turned around, facing the soldiers. “You can't punish her. She's acted with the rebels, not against them.”

The soldiers didn't speak. The short, stocky soldier with gray hair pulled me from the line. He grabbed rope from his belt and began tying my hands, while the other soldier leveled his gun at my chest. Their faces were calm, betraying nothing.

“Anyone else?” the female soldier asked. She spoke slowly, and I noticed then that her lip was cut, the flesh swollen at the corner of her mouth. “Is anyone else from the Palace?”

“She shouldn't be punished,” the woman repeated. She lowered her hands, stepping out of the line. “Please—let her be. She's pregnant.”

The man with gray hair pulled me forward, my hands tied. “That's not your decision.” He led me toward the roof's exit, the female soldier following us. The rest of the citizens just stood there, watching, their hands still raised as the soldiers pulled me down the stairs.

As soon as we were alone, the words spilled from my lips. I tried not to sound desperate as they pulled me forward, the metal steps passing quickly beneath my feet. “I was working with Moss.” I could barely make out their faces in the dark. “He was in a position inside the Palace, and I was working with him in an assassination plot against the King.”

The stocky soldier twisted the rope around his hand again, not looking at me as I spoke. We went through the cement warehouse, its dank, shadowy insides filled with half-built furniture—dressers, tables, and chairs. The rifle was pressed into the small of my back as we stepped out onto the road. “I've never heard of a Moss,” the female soldier said.

“Reginald,” I said. “He went by Reginald inside the City. He worked as my father's Head of Press.”

A fire burned up ahead, casting a strange glow on the buildings. The stocky soldier pulled me along, the rope burning my wrists. “You admit he's your father,” he said.

The woman shook her head. Her hair was rolled into thin dreadlocks, the ends of them caked with dirt.

“I was part of the Trail,” I added. “Ask the women in Califia—contact Maeve. She knows.”

We just kept moving, their faces unfeeling as we walked past rows of citizens. Some were huddled outside apartment complexes, being questioned by the rebels. A whole line of New American soldiers stood in the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket, their hands roped behind their backs, their weapons in a pile. I tried to push away the quiet, persistent fear that had taken hold of me. How could it end here, like this?

“I killed him. It wasn't an attempt. You'll know soon enough. He's dead.”

They didn't respond. We were coming up to the main road. A pack of rebels stood by the Mirage apartments, its glass front dark. They listened to a woman shouting orders. She pointed them in different directions, gesturing with her hands.

“We need more in the south end of the City,” she said. Her back was to me, her short black hair tangled at the nape of her neck.

I knew her before she turned, revealing the same profile I'd seen a hundred times before. I smiled, despite the rope binding my hands, despite the sound of gunfire off in the north, near the wall.

“You're alive,” I called out. “You're the rebel leader?”

Arden turned. Her black hair had grown out, framing her face in a short bob. In her mud-caked clothes, the red band tied tightly around her bicep, she looked like every other soldier. A rifle was slung across her back. She held up one hand, and the soldiers around her fell into a slow silence, pausing, waiting for her to address them again. Then she came to me, enveloping me in a hug.

The weight of it all lifted, my body giving in to hers. I buried my face in her neck, letting myself cry for the first time in days, the swell of it so intense I felt like someone was choking me. We stayed like that, locked in a tight embrace, as if we were the last two people on Earth.

“THEY SAW THE FIRST SIGNS OF THE TRUCKS,” ARDEN SAID. “IT
won't be more than an hour until the girls from the Schools reach the City.” She stepped out of her shoes, curling her feet underneath her at she sat on the edge of my bed. She wore a black knit sweater and burgundy skirt—her hair brushed away from her face. After so many months together in the wild, of seeing her in stiff, dirt-caked clothes, she seemed foreign to me. She looked so at ease inside the City, confident even in the way she sat—legs folded to one side, her fingers kneading a muscle in her neck.

“I'll go with you to greet them,” I said. “The workers in the adoption centers have been put on call to help. They've brought the supplies to the lower floors of the Mandalay apartments. Hopefully in a few weeks, when things stabilize, the girls can begin venturing into the City.”

“Hopefully,” Arden repeated. She met my gaze for a moment before looking away. She didn't need to explain what she meant. It had been three weeks since the colonies took over, and the City was still in transition. I wondered how long it would last, the sudden swells that rose up on the main strip. A faction of New American soldiers resented the rebels for taking control of the army and loosening security at the wall. The Lieutenant had fled in the hours following the invasion, abandoning the men. When I imagined life in the City without my father, with the rebels securing the Palace, I hadn't realized I'd still be in danger. Even now, though Arden and I had been hidden in the Cosmopolitan tower several blocks away, soldiers escorted me wherever I went. They were stationed outside our doors at night, in anticipation of an assassination attempt.

“The elections can't come soon enough,” I said. “Once the government formally transitions, once there's one leader—”

“President,” Arden specified, nearly smiling as she said it. “The first president in nearly seventeen years.”

“Maybe you,” I said. Arden stood, barely acknowledging the comment. Several leaders from the east had decided it was best to combine the resources of the cities now, establishing them as three separate settlements under unified rule. A couple who'd led the northernmost colony were said to be up for election, but there were murmurs that Arden would be considered as well. She was one of three rebels from the west who'd inspired the colonies to come forward, in the wake of the failed siege. When I thought of Arden leaving the boys and instead taking a horse east, I was certain she deserved a permanent place in the Palace (though that term—“Palace”—was being used less and less these days).